Kara McCloskey is a recent Rutgers graduate who was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and will be traveling to Malaysia in January of 2014 to work with children as part of the award.

Becoming a Fulbright Scholar created the perfect opportunity for Kara McCloskey to combine her love of traveling, children and women's issues.

"I'm hoping that it will give me a little life direction, trying to figure out what exactly I want to do," said McCloskey, a 2009 graduate of Morris Knolls High School.. "I know I want to work with women and children but I'm not totally sure what facet of that I want to be involved with. There's so many problems in the world, I won't have a hard time finding something."

In January 2014, McCloskey will spend the next 10 months working in Malaysia as an English teaching assistant through the Fulbright Program.

As stated on the Fulbright website, in 1945, Senator J. William Fulbright introduced a bill in the United States Congress that called for the use of surplus war property to fund the "promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture, and science."

McCloskey, 22, graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers in May with a degree in history and political science. She learned of the different scholarship opportunities available to students through the school's fellowship director and found the Fulbright fulfilled all the qualifications she was looking for. To be considered, she had to write a series of essays explaining why she was interested in teaching English and more specifically, in Malaysia.

"To get picked for the Fulbright, you have to have really good grades, and you have to have some type of global learning and community service," said McCloskey, who minored in philosophy and religion. "They pay for everything, airfare, housing, health insurance, travel expenses and also a basic stipend so you have money to eat and stuff like that."

After a panel review, McCloskey was notified by email that she had been chosen.

"I opened it up and I was like, 'Thank God, I got it,'" she said, laughing. "It's awesome to graduate and know I have something right around the corner that's going to be really amazing. I can't wait for January to get here."

While doing her first year of undergraduate work in Switzerland, the Denville resident realized just how much she enjoyed seeing the world.

"I love to travel and experience different cultures and just expand my knowledge of the world. There's so much to see. I love to just stop and learn about the culture and build friendships with people."

With Rutgers' Study Abroad Program, McCloskey made her first trip to India two years ago to visit many of the country's holy sites. The students stayed in a town called Vrindavan, a small village considered to be a holy town within Hinduism.

"They believe their god spent his childhood in that town. And I ended up playing with the children every afternoon and I fell in love with them," said McCloskey, who interns at the Rutgers Oral History Archives. "That ended up being the coolest part of the experience and meeting the children's families."

Last summer McCloskey received a small grant from the Institute for Women's Leadership at Rutgers to start an education program for a group of children in rural India. She decided to return to Vrindavan again but this time she would be traveling alone.

"I was petrified. That was probably the most scary thing I've ever done. I showed up at the airport in India and I couldn't even find my driver for 45 minutes. So that was really scary," said McCloskey, who doesn't speak Hindi or any of the other dialects spoken in Asia.

"I was just so scared but at the end of the day but it was totally rewarding because I came back and now I'm not really afraid of a lot of things. I figured if I could do India by myself, I could handle anything."

When McCloskey reached Vrindavan, the youngsters she befriended were excited to see her again.

"They probably thought I was never going to come back. They call me 'mata jee' which means mother and it's so cute. It's definitely lifelong friends that I've made. I just fell in love with these kids. I consider them to be my kids. It was definitely awesome. I still think about them every single day."

McCloskey could be assigned anywhere in Malaysia, from the northern end near Thailand to the southern end near Singapore. No matter where she's assigned, she's guessing it will be in a rural village. She expects to hear from Fulbright within the next month.

"Later down the road I'd like to start a career in international development. So I thought it might be a really good experience to go to Asia and work with children. I do love working with kids so I thought that was a huge bonus. But I'm hoping there will be some community development programs I can help take part in."

No matter where she's assigned, McCloskey is hoping to start up a women's empowerment program, something she feels very passionate about.

"I was thinking a really cool program is micro credit loans so you give out a small loan and you allow a woman to start up a small business," said McCloskey, who would love to live in India some day.

"Maybe purchase a few animals and she could sell milk or eggs. Then she pays the loan back and gives it to another woman so another woman could start it up. Or maybe do embroidery or sell jewelry, something like that. I'm not totally sure of the reality of the situation yet but I have a lot of cool ideas."

Once she's settled in Malaysia, one of McCloskey's goals is to start up a program with a school in Denville.

"I'm excited. I was thinking of starting up a pen pal program. Anything to expand the classrooms so that kids in Denville have an idea of what life is like outside of Denville. And kids in Malaysia have an idea of what life is like in the U.S. Honestly, anytime you add an element of global education, I think, it's for the kids' benefit."

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